本书是供大学英语专业学生和具有同等水平自学者使用的英语精读课教材。大部分课文来源于英美原文材料，内容涉及人文、历史、地理、大事件等广泛的文化背景知识，深人了解与教材有关的历史文化背景、名人生平、语篇结构分析与文章写作技巧等相关知识。

本书编写完全与原教材同步，并且按原教材的课次顺序进行编辑，目的就是方便阅读者学习与欣赏。全书共六章，前四章每章十五个单元，后两章每章十二个单元，每单元前都附有自主学习指导。前四章每单元具体内容包括：(1)人文、大事件、历史、地理等文化背景知识，(2)语篇结构分析(每一篇课文A的主旨和段落提要)；后两章每章具体内容包括：人文、大事件、历史、地理等文化背景知识。

本文仅供英语专业学习者进行阅读参考和自主学习使用。

Chapter I

Unit 1 Half a Day

Unit 2 Going Home

Unit 3 Message of the Land 

Unit 4 The Boy and the Bank Officer

Unit 5 Angels on a Pin

Unit 6 The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Unit 7 Mandela’S Garden

Unit 8 My Personal Manager 

Unit 9 Against all Odds

Unit 10 The Green Banana 

Unit 11 The Midnight Visitor

Unit 12 The Kindness of Strangers

Unit 13 Christmas Day in the Morning

Unit 14 After Twenty Years

Unit 15 Touched by the Moon

ChapterⅡ

Unit 1 Another School Year—What For?

Unit 2 Maheegun My Brother

Unit 3 More Crime and Less Punishment

Unit 4 The Nightingale and the Rose-

Unit 5 Say Yes

Unit 6 The Man in the Water

Unit 7 The Great Invention

Unit 8 Psychologically Speaking 

Unit 9 Quick Fix Society

Unit 10 The Richer，the Poorer

Unit 11 You Have to Get Me Out of Here

Unit 12 Confessions of a Miseducated Man

Unit 13 Blueprint for Success

Unit 14 Space Shuttle Challenger

Unit 15 The Riddle of Time

ChapterⅢ

Unit 1 Your College Years

Unit 2 Discovery of A Father

Unit 3 Michael Dell’S Two-Billion-Dollar Dream109

Unit 4 Wisdom of Bear Wood

Unit 5 ＆ 6 Twelve Angry Men

Unit 7 The Rivals

Unit 8 We’re Only Man

Unit 9 The DilI Pickle

Unit 10 Diogenes and Alexander

Unit 11 Silent Spring

Unit 12 The Needs That Drive Us All

Unit 13 In My Day

Unit 14 Mercy at Appomattox

Unit 15 The President as Corporate

ChapterⅣ

Unit 1 Thinking as A Hobby

Unit 2 Waiting for the Police

Unit 3 Why Historians Disagree

Unit 4 A Drink in the Passage 

Unit 5 Man of the Moment

Unit 6 Groundless Beliefs

Unit 7 Spring Sowing

Unit 8 Globalization’S Dual Power204

Unit 9 The Most Dangerous Game

Unit 10 The Telephone 

Unit 11 The Pen of My Aunt

Unit 12 Lions and Tigers and Bears

Unit 13 Soldier’S Heart 

Unit 14 How Do We Deal with the Drug Problem? 

Unit 15 The Damned Human Race

Chapter V

Unit 1 Where Do We Go from Here? 

Unit 2 Two Kinds

Unit 3 Goods MovePeople MoveIdeas MoveAnd Cultures Change

Unit 4 Professions for Women 

Unit 5 Love Is a Fallacy

Unit 6 Life Beyond Earth

Unit 7 Invisible Man

Unit 8 The Merely Very Good

Unit 9 The Way to Rainy Mountain

Unit 10 Before and After September

Unit 11 An Iowa Christmas

Unit 12 How News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Off-limits

ChapterⅥ

Unit 1 HOW to Get the Poor off our conscience

Unit 2 The Woods Were Tossing with Jewels

Unit 3 At War with the Planet

Unit 4 Nettles

Unit 5 The One Against the Many

Unit 6 Death of a Pig

Unit 7 Inaugural Address

Unit 8 A Rose for Emily

Unit 9 The Bluest Eye

Unit 10 Notes on the English Character

Unit 11 Beauty

Unit 12 The Hot Gates

Reference